The Keepers of the People

692Meanwhile Ralph Falcon had come to London in the wake of Miss Freshington. He found no hindrance offered to their marriage: she had her relatives under her control. Indeed, they rejoiced at her settlement in life, and bore with an admirable fortitude her future severance from them by so many miles of sea. He and she were seen together at all important functions, were dined at all important houses; and she grew proud of him: his silence, his indifference, almost aloofness from the rest of the world, gave him an air of distinction that gained her credit, a credit which the rumours of the vastness of his wealth in no way diminished. She would have liked, indeed, to proclaim, to every one’s envy, that she would be a Princess in the East; but he had charged her so strictly to be silent about it that she dared not; for she had no little fear of him. He showed an indifference to the women he met that pleased her greatly: there was something barbaric in his way of regarding them. He talked at length only with men who had been administrators of dependencies of England, above all of India; for the rest of the time he spoke little, watching and listening with impassive face, measuring the men and women who filled the drawing-rooms. But for all her pride in her lover, Miss Freshington was scarcely happy in her love; she found herself craving always for the fond word which never came, and she raged at her weakness: she had thought herself fitted above all women for a marriage of state. She considered often how, by her influence as a woman of the newer lights, she would change the social conditions prevailing in his father’s kingdom; better the lot of the women, and teach them to march level with the men; how they should together be exalted to the loftiest, equal ideals. Twice when she told him of her high purpose he reminded her gravely, that she had accepted the position of his helper; and assured her plainly that no such changes would be suffered. Confident of herself, she only smiled; she saw that by strength of will, and inborn woman’s wit, she would easily thrust aside his old-world beliefs.